Neverwinter Forest Monza

 @Dutch  - my 100th thread with Dwin!

Dwin had not forgotten her promise to put effort in finding Ponyboy and his girlfriend. One problem was that they had been gone for a little over than a month now. It felt as if they had disappeared the surface of the Earth completley. The other - she realized, how very big the world actually was. While staying within the safe confines of caldera, it was easy to imagine conquering the world. Once you got out of it, you found out that the scale was massive. A speck of dust could not take the planet. 

There was a little consolation in the fact that at least she was giving a try in an impossible task and return home with clear conscience. Again she left Sylvie to explore the nearby forest and see, if there was anything useful for them to snack on. Food - as it was usual in winter - was not a light find and they had gone hungry for one or two days in the row. If they intended to cover even more ground, they had to have fuel to burn. 

Spring felt like a distant dream upon the glacier. There were times when the cold got even to him — although this was usually remedied by a nap just long enough to thaw his toes. It was different down below, where the Neverwinter Forest was still untouched by snow. It was a stubborn woodland, Dutch thought, gazing up at the dense canopy. Laden with snow, the boughs didn't let in as much light as usual, but it was still a warm and welcoming place.

It was high time he visited Valiant, he thought, but he was all too easily waylaid when he came across another's scent. Passing travelers were always of interest to him. They often had stories they were eager to tell, and Dutch was ever the eager listener.

"Peace be," he called when he found the trail's end, and the grayscale wolf it led to. Then, "Would you mind some company?" he asked as he drew near.

Dwin had not seen the man coming, therefore his greeting came as a surprise. She jumped, she bristled and eyed the stranger distrustfully, until his words sank in and his body-language assured that he meant no harm for now and was simply curious for the newcomer in the area. He was a good-looking man: tall, well-built, he radiated calm confidence and his eyes were in the flaming colours of the sunset. Unlike the embarrassing encounter with Andr, this time her rationality had an iron grip on, what was a favourable first impression of a man. This happened very rarely. 

"Greetings to the fellow traveller," she returned with a polite dip of her muzzle, her gaze never leaving his face. She also took a step back, wishing to keep the distance between them comfortable for her. "Depends on many things. Do you consider yourself as good company?" she asked, tilting her head to the side and offering him a charming smile. 

Favorable indeed — the panther was charmed to be addressed as a fellow traveler. He carried now the scent of the glacier pack, but he liked to imagine his wayfaring routes had left some tangible mark upon him. This wolf seemed to see it, and so he was eager to at least make her acquaintance.

"Without being too vain," said Dutch, coming to a halt as soon as the young woman stepped back, "I consider myself positively enchanting. The crème de la crème. A prince among men."

But the smile he offered invited her to laugh at this.

"My name's Dutch," he said, and he looked over his shoulder at the dark of the woods. He knew he could find his way back by scent, but he was not all that sure he was pointing in exactly the right direction when he told her, "I came down from the glacier pack. Morningsong. That way."

His head swiveled back to her, burnished gaze bright and curious. He hoped she would fill the silence with her name and origin, but he was ready too for his conversational skills to be further put to the test.

"Aaah... princes do not convince me. The last one I met was and still is kind of a bastard," Dwin referred to Ingram. "But even so, he is an interesting company. Very. You have a chance, however, to redeem the good name of the princes and change my opinion," she gave him a toothy grin. 

"Name's Dwin and I wear the scents and magic of Brecheliant proudly," she introduced herself and even made a little bow. "So - prince of Morningsong - what is your story of valiance and bravery?" she asked, sitting down and tilting her head to the side, while her green gaze studied the man's complexion 

"Impress me well and I will reveal some secrets of the sacred haghood," she offered.

The panther startled himself with another laugh.

"No — I think you are right to be wary of princes," he told her, only halfway joking. A smile lingered on his dark muzzle, but he meant it when he went on: "I never trusted the one my sister took up with — not that he hung around long enough to get to know."

His nostrils flared and twitched.

"I would much rather hear about Brecheliant," he said, still earnest. "I will certainly share whatever information necessary in exchange. My deeds of daring do are hardly Arthurian — but I'm sure I have a thrilling tale or two that might earn me your favor. But only if said favor is necessary to get a story out of you."

So sorry for the long wait and the dragged out thread. I have so much writing to do for work related stuff that I really do not have anything in me to write in my free time. :D

"Stories are the currency we use in Brecheliant. Food is amazing, of course, but a good story oftentimes can fill a void in one's hear that food cannot," Dwin replied, surprised at her own eloquence with words, because  usually ideas sounded so much better in her mind than, when she decided to put them in words. Maybe she had inherited more talent in this trade than she had realized. 

"It began out as as a magical forest for wolves of story-teller trade to dwell and find refuge in. But as all magic in this world, in order to keep balance, for every couple of spells and miracles, it claimed lives of wolves. My aunt - Wraen - who was a master story-teller in her lifetime is buried there and, while she does not have a ghostly presence there, when you take a seat near her final resting place, close your eyes and listen, you can feel that supernatural world so, so close as if you could just reach out and touch it," she told. 

"But my parents and the rest of the pack decided that two lives claimed is a bit of steep price to pay to stay in one place. Therefore they moved to my father's childhood home. They kept the name and the story-telling tradition, but I think that... looking at, how things have unfolded over the years, it is not so much the place that is to blame, but the particular magic that my folk have entagled themselves in it. Because again - the forest has claimed a life - and it sometimes feels as if this is a fate we will never escape. Imagination, creativity and a knack for seeing the otherworldly just runs in the family. It may have been a gift to one of our ancestors a long, long time ago, but they could not have realized, what it would mean for the future generations," Dwin said. She had come up with this on the spot. Again - surprising even for herself. 

"Scared?" she asked, tilting her head to the side and offering the man a devillish grin.

It was a sadder tale than he'd hoped, though of course, these things were not rare happenings in the world. Everyone died, and Dutch no more believed that the forest was to blame than he blamed the supposed magic the girl spoke of. Perhaps it did exist there, but he was not afraid of it killing him. There were so many other ways to die.

"Not yet," he replied, his smile just a little sad. "What other worlds have you seen with this magic? Perhaps there is something there that can raise the hair on my spine?"

Yet he wondered if this was something the girl had made up, or if it was something that was truly passed down generation to generation in their family. Perhaps if he had more proof that the whole sect of these wolves shared these beliefs, he might start to get nervous.

"I think I should like to see this forest," he told her, not boastful or incredulous so much as he was thoughtful. "And to feel the strange magics there. There is a place like this on the glacier. A place where a very lively spirit was laid to rest."

He thought of Kukutux's sad, distant eyes.

"Well, the gift of walking between worlds and dimensions is given to very few of the living and it is more likely that you are able to access it, when you are almost dead," Dwin explained. "I do not know the exact mechanism behind it, but it has something to do with our mortal bodies. They cannot follow us, where our spirit could walk with ease," she said and not all of it had been made up on the spot right there and then. 

"And I have learned that the thing with magic - especially, if it is related to your family line - is that you can sense only that, what is meaningful to you. Say - I sense - let's call it the shadow - my aunt left, when she died, because I grew up with stories about her and, while I have never met her in my life - she is very much alive in my mind," she told. "Whereas I might not feel that strange magic on the glacier, because I do not know the names and stories of the souls and spirits to whom the place was of importance," she told. 

"But - a story for a story. I told you one. Now is your turn to impress me," she tossed the ball in Dutch's side of the field and waited for him to begin. 

This was fascinating to Dutch, but it was all a little out of left field. He listened with an expression akin to a layman listening to a rocket scientist's collegiate lecture, and at the end, blinked as if someone had snapped their fingers in front of his face. It reminded him of his mother, in a way, and so when he was challenged for a story, he had one ready to go.

"Ah — you remind me of my mother," he told her. "She knows strange magics, too. She was never one to use them — not that I knew of, at least. Not until she told me of my brother, Anurag."

Here, he paused for dramatic effect.

"He was my littermate, though I have no true memories of him," he said to Ceridwen. "He was born very weak, and when my mother saw that he would not make his first month, she breathed his life back into her body. And we did not see him again for many years. We lived our lives as if he had died with his body, though my mother always spoke of him as fondly as the rest of us. And it was in this season that she came to me with a young man — one who looked very like me, and who possessed the heart of many in our line. One who was called Sumac at birth, but whose family had since been lost to him. My mother used women's magic to breath the life of my brother into this man. Now he carries the name Anurag as well — beloved, in my father's tongue. And my brother walks the earth once more."

It was not so long or involved a tale as her own, but it was meaningful to Dutch.

"What did happen to that man's original soul?" Dwin asked. Even though the story had been really good and with a twist, the ending that was supposed to be happy left her wondering. She could not wrap her mind around the fact that someone could simply replace one person with the other. In her opinion one's soul was inextricably bound to the body. If the body died, the soul went with you. 

"It is a good story, though," she praised the man. She was inclined to ask him if the "new" brother had ever felt like a real sibling, but not only would it be tactless, it was quite possible that the story itself was a metaphor for something more substantial. 

"Well, it was nice chatting with you, but I should better get going and find a shelter - otherwise I risk losing some of my fingers. And I am very fond of them," she told him. And after exchanging goodbyes, left hastily.